An urgent medication or prescription request is a request for medication that needs completing the same day or sooner than the 48hour timescale taken to process routine prescriptions. This if often because patients have forgotten to order their medication and have run out.
The medical centre will record urgent prescription requests as (Urgent - X78uK) in patient medical records in order to monitor the number of urgent prescription requests made by individuals. This will help to identify patients’ who continually put pressure on the service.
- Patients receive an SMS message when all urgent prescription requests are received.
- If a patient requests an urgent prescription on three occasions (within a 12 month period) an Urgent medication letter 1 - Formal warning letter, will be sent to the patient by the prescriptions team. This letter will outline the impact urgent requests have on the practice, offer the patient support if they are having difficulty ordering their medication and make them aware of the implications of continued urgent medication requests.
- If a patient requests an urgent prescription on five occasions (within a 12 month period) an Urgent medication letter 2 - Final warning letter, will be sent to the patient by the prescriptions team. This letter will outline the impact urgent requests have on the practice, offer the patient support if they are having difficulty and make them aware of the implications of continued urgent medication requests.
- If a patient requests an urgent prescription on six occasions (within a 12 month period) the patient details will be brought to Practice Manager attention by the prescriptions team. This will then be discussed with the GP Partners who will make a decision as to whether the patient should be removed from the list.
If the decision is made to remove the patient from the registered list, the Practice Manager will write to the patient with an Urgent medication letter 3 - Removal from list letter, explaining the decision and advising them to register with an alternative Practice.
General Practice experiences a large volume of requests for prescriptions each day, in addition to this; many patients also request and/or demand medication on an urgent same day basis.
Due to the workload of the on call GP and pressures on the service, we are not always able to meet the demand of urgent medication requests.
The Urgent Medication Monitoring policy outlines the monitoring of urgent prescription requests at Guardian Medical Centre and outlines how patients are supported, communicated with and managed following repeated urgent medication requests.
The Practice will undertake the following actions to help reduce the number of urgent medication requests
- Regularly educate patients on how they can order their medications
- Dedicated prescriptions team to support patients and offer advice
- Dedicated prescription line to speak with the prescriptions team about medications/prescriptions
- Offer pharmacy support to assist ordering if required
- Promote online services to all patients
- Offer advice & support on using online services
- Easily accessible information on website – how to order / ordering medications